[BANISHED] Freakcake #1 - Barrel-aged Oud Bruin Ale
Crux Fermentation Project

2019 Bottle poured into a snifter

A: Pours chestnut brown with a frothy beige head that settles to a thin layer and leaves a little spotty lacing.

S: Lactic tartness, citrus, oak, funk, hay, toasty malt, dark and dried stone fruit, a nice touch of bourbon, and a little toffee.

T: Pleasantly tart, mild barnyard funk and hay, citrus zest, lemon and orange, dark fruit, cranberry, tart cherry, plum, fig, raisin, and date, a little bourbon and toffee lurking in the shadows, but quickly washed away by the funk and acidic leaving a fairly dry finish.

M: On the fuller side of full body, prickly moderate carbonation, acid keeps things somewhat crisp.

O: Super complex, felt like I was finding something different every sip until the glass was empty. Not the kinda thing I drink often so I'm kinda winging it with my score. I definitely want to try a fresher version to see how much it's developed over the years in the bottle.

 

Nicely done oud sour. Dark amber with minimal beige head. Aroma is pure sour, tart and elements of, some wine essences. wood aging. Taste is dark wood and malt, smooth yet tart.

 

Crux Fermentation 'Freakcake' @ 10.5% , served from a 2016 vintage grey waxed / corked 375 ml bottle ?
A-pour is amber from the bottle to a dark amber in the glass with a large tan head with a super fine spotty lace leaving a couple of streak's along the tulip
S-Barrel Aging , potent , ripe fruit , mostly cherries , almost over ripe
T-tart , refreshing , then the ABV kicks in on the second pour/taste/swallow
MF-ok/decent carbonation , feels full bodied , feeling the abv
Ov-good beer not great
prost LampertLand

Go to Belgium and learn to brew a real oud Bruin before you label it as such

2013 bottle on 12/31/18 in a New Belgium Tulip. It comes across rather sweet at this stage, darker fruits and apple. Good carb to it. Finish is the opposite of dry which isn't a bad thing to me. Overall very good beer at this age.

Poured from a corked and waxed 12 oz bottle into a Dogfish Head tulip. 2016 edition, refrigerated since purchase.

L: Cloudy prune brown pour with surprisingly thick fluffy white head. Outstanding lacing.

S: Tart and funky... dark fruit, lemon peel, brown sugar, and apple-cider vinegar.

T/F: It's complicated. Nice and tart up front without being overtly sour... green fruit and lemon rind... barnyard and funk... dark cherry, plum, and dark sugars. Oak and vinegar... fig, raisin, and brett. Creamy carbonation... medium bodied... hides the ABV far too well.

O: A fantastic and complex beer. Great flavor and drinkability... just loved this one and wish I had a few more stashed away.

Appearance: Pours a murky root beer color with two fingers of tan foam; the head sticks around for about a minute, fading to a film and leaves a few spots that dribble down the glass

Smell: The Maker's Mark barrel can be smelled across the room but underneath there are tones of sour cherries, raisins, cranberries and figs; caramel malt and oak tones bring another dimension; tart vinegar tones and funky Brett completes the inherent complexity

Taste; Tart cherry, cranberry and fig forward, with a growing degree of leathery funk and oak building; through the middle, a combination of the Maker's Mark and the lemon tones launch the flavors in yet another direction, with hints of caramel emerging in the finish

Mouthfeel: Medium to full body with low carbonation; warmth in the gullet

Overall: A lot going on here - just a fascinating beer; not something to drink without some time to contemplate the complexity

 

 

Delicious! A very nice, rather mild but quite complex take on an Oud Bruin. The multi-layered fruit works very well with the style; there’s a lot to explore in the taste and the mouthfeel is elegant. I like the Brett tones, but they are pretty subtle. I think I’ll get a couple more bottles, cellar them for a year or two and see what happens!

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store - always a surprise to see this kinda stuff on tap, rather than in more sensible, i.e. smaller bottled offerings. Ah well.

This beer pours a murky, dark orange-brick brown colour, with one anemic finger of wispy and weakly bubbly off-white head, which leaves a few instances of splintered windshield lace around the glass as things slowly progress.

It smells of tart red berries, bready and doughy caramel malt, some musty earthiness, generic wine staves, further indistinct Mediterranean fruity notes, some mild old-school yeastiness, and very tame leafy, herbal, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready caramel malt, spiced citrus flesh, wet wood, a further date/fig-esque fruitiness, cherry-forward red wine, musty yeast, and more very understated earthy, weedy, and gently soused-up floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite benign in its complacent-seeming frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, but for a foreboding sense of burbling alcohol ingress. It finishes off-dry, the malt and wood-tainted fruitiness lingering with the most panache.

Overall - this comes across as a decently rendered version of the style, with the barrel treatment thankfully lending more fruit than funk to the whole affair. It definitely has a feeling of 'old' to it, and I mean that in a good way. Add in the more or less integrated 21-proof wowee sauce component, and well, folks, we may have a winner on our hands here!

 

 

 

Poured from a 12.7oz bottle. Bottled on tax day 2016.
A: Pours a off clear dark copper brown with a thin white head that stays with pretty much no lacing.
S: Complex fruits and wine notes nose,very cool nose for sure very earthy.
T: Dried dark cherry at the start sweet raisins and dates with woody notes.
F: Not heavy at all and not to sweet nice carbonation rather clean.
O; well a huge change for me i like this a lot but a slow drinking one. Try One.

 

Bottled on tax day 2016.

Just when I get the wax and cap off, I find a damn cork!

Despite being in the fridge for days and carefully decanting, it pours a murky brown. Light tan head has a thin ring of retention, which shows a little lace.

Sour and oaky, with some cherry and robust red wine-like aroma.

The barrel seems to have spoiled this one, with a soured oak flavour. Strangely reminiscent of canned cranberries.

Body is somewhat powdery and acidic, with a very drying alcohol finish.

Bottle from Natural Provisions, Williston, VT.
Back of the bottle reads: Bottled on "Tax Day, 2016."
This was poured into a tulip.
The appearance was a dark brown color allowing no light to penetrate. A finger's worth of white foamy head sat atop of the beer and slid off at a decent pace. Mild stringy lace formed and slid into the beer.
The aroma started with some red wine, light sweet clean driftwood, mild allspice, light clean earthiness, a little zip from some citrus, black cherry skin and flesh, slight sour with a touch of tart and bitter.
The flavor charged with the sour cherry skin initially and developed a nice blend of the tart and the sweet wood. Citrusy cling seems to not be as clingy here, way fainter. Somewhat sticky sort of sweet to sour to tart and woody to cherry like aftertaste.
The mouthfeel was about medium bodied with a fair sipping quality about it. Carbonation felt fine, perhaps a bit lower, but that didn't bother me as there's some woody dryness inflecting it's due course along my tongue. ABV felt as projected by the brewer.
Overall, despite being aged a bit, this turned out absolutely wonderful, a fine gem well worthy of coming back to.